The felt is the wrong shade of green. That’s what sticks with me, staring at the Duplex Billiard table. It’s a sickly, almost neon lime, like a sports drink from 2003. The balls click with a sound that’s not quite right either, a flat, digital thwack instead of a resonant clack. You’re here to win, supposedly, to be faster than the opponent, but the real currency is patience. You sink a solid, and a progress bar fills. The redhead on the left, a real model with a smirk that suggests she’s already bored, unbuttons her blouse with all the enthusiasm of someone filing taxes. The animation is a series of stills, a flipbook of undressing. Her bra is aggressively white, practical. It’s the least erotic thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a documentary about sea cucumbers.

The blonde opponent is a pool shark, I think. She clears the table with a mechanical precision that makes my own clumsy shots feel like a personal insult. I’m stuck on the 7-ball, a stubborn purple orb that refuses to find a pocket. The game’s physics engine is a mystery. A soft tap sends the cue ball rocketing into the corner, while a full-power break leaves everything clustered in the center like a frightened herd. There’s no spin, no English, just the raw, unfeeling geometry of a line and a prayer. The lesbian show, the promised reward, is a series of awkward, stilted embraces. The models, a redhead and a blonde, move through a striptease that feels less like seduction and more like a choreographed routine for a security camera. Their eyes never meet. They stare just past each other, at a point on the wall, maybe at that horrible green felt.

A single bead of pixelated sweat rolls down the redhead’s temple. I can’t stop looking at it. It’s the most detailed thing in the entire game, a tiny, glistening masterpiece of rendering on an otherwise flat texture. The music is a loop of what I can only describe as royalty-free saxophone, the kind of sound that plays in the background of a late-night infomercial for a compilation of sensual hits. I finally win a round. The blonde’s skirt phases through her leg as she turns. The promised show is just them standing close, a loop of a near-kiss that never lands. It’s like watching two mannequins being pushed together by a tired retail worker. The whole thing has the energy of a forgotten folder on a dusty hard drive, a relic of a specific, pixelated desire. That sweat drop, though. I’ll remember that sweat drop.